Combining Online Marketing with Personalized Swag to Build a Brand.

Branding your company is key to success. So is marketing. Combine the two, and you can carry your business a long way in a short time. Take Nike, for instance; what is the first thing that comes to mind? “Just do it.” That single phrase started out as a marketing campaign to outsell Reebok, but ended up becoming their brand. Now the slogan and the check mark are inseparable. That is the level of branding you want to achieve for your business, and you can do it by combining online marketing and personalized swag.

Social Media and Contests

Reach out on social media. There are hundreds of different strategies you can take to have a creative marketing campaign. Put a notice out on Facebook and Twitter that anyone who signs up for your email list is entered for a drawing for a free bit of swag. Another alternative is to collect information such as home addresses at the time of sign up and mail everyone who joins your email list a free item that costs you only a small amount. Something like a pen. Higher-value items can be mailed to the winners of the drawing; you want to conduct this contest without going bankrupt yourself.

Helpful eBooks

A tried and true method is to write a small eBook on your subject area of expertise. Brand the front of the book with your logo and give out free downloads to everyone who joins your email list. Everyone from Seth Godin to Jeff Goins has used this technique to outstanding results. It doesn’t have to be a long book – just a few pages, or even a white paper is sufficient. So long as the item provides value, it provides incentive to join.

Tag It

Create a hashtag craze. Once you have a good online campaign together, be sure that the promotional products you are giving away will support the online strategy. Place the hashtag on your products, and reward users for tweeting pictures of themselves using your products with that hashtag. Decide on a specific hashtag that no one else will use, and put it on your site. Start a conversation on Twitter with that tag and get people involved. Even there is no swag to give away, people enjoy being a part of something big. You can even implement the contest idea from earlier, entering those who retweet your advertisement for the chance to win something of value.

These are just a few suggestions, and the list could go on. In this modern era, the best way to market is online, and combining online marketing with personalized swag will allow you to spread your brand far and wide. The goal is to become recognizable, to associate your brand with a solution to a problem. When your company becomes the go-to solution to a given problem, (think Tums, or NyQuil) you will know that you are doing it right.